Meta Restores Suspended Facebook Account of Christian Persecution Watchdog Romanian Tribune
MENLO PARK, Calif. – Meta has restored the wrongfully suspended Facebook account for the Romanian Tribune newspaper, the leading Christian voice of the Romanian diaspora in the U.S. and worldwide. The outlet’s reinstatement comes two weeks after Alliance Defending Freedom sent a letter to Meta calling on the social media giant to reverse its suspension of the account.
ALLIANCE DEFENDING FREEDOM
NEWS RELEASE
The Tribune, which has more than 6,100 followers on its Facebook page, is the latest in a flurry of accounts restored to Meta’s platforms since CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement of major changes earlier this year. Those changes include a badly needed series of improvements and clarifications to its content moderation policies. Following a letter from ADF in January, Meta restored Facebook and Instagram accounts for pro-life news site LifeNews.com and editor Steven Ertelt, along with hopeful adoptive mother Abby Covington.
“If you can’t speak online, you’re effectively blocked from participating as a free and full member of society,” said ADF Senior Counsel Phil Sechler, director of the ADF Center for Free Speech. “For too long, Meta and other platforms allowed themselves to pick and choose winners and losers via censorship. That’s wrong. But Meta is clearly correcting course to protect speech and guard against censorship, and that’s a win for every American.”
Last fall, Facebook notified the Tribune of its immediate suspension, saying the page “goes against” the platform’s Community Standards. Staff at the Tribune were initially allowed to click an appeal button but were never given a specific reason for the suspension. Ironically, one of the last articles the Tribune had posted on Facebook the day it was suspended, “The Left Declares Open War on Freedom of Expression,” criticized former Climate Czar John Kerry for advocating state-directed censorship on social media.
The ADF letter to Meta also highlighted vague allegations of Community Standards violations Meta sent the Tribune since it started the page in 2011. Without providing a specific reason, Facebook notified the Tribune of posts it removed around a dozen times. Tribune staff later learned that Facebook removed other articles without any notification. Rather than spread the type of false and hateful information that Meta prohibits, the articles provided news and commentary from a respectful Christian perspective. Those instances demonstrated the danger of the underlying polices that were largely responsible for Meta’s low tally on ADF’s 2024 Viewpoint Diversity Score Business Index, which measures corporate respect for free speech and religious liberty.
“Meta’s decision to restore us to the platform is a step in the right direction,” said Romanian Tribune Senior Managing Editor, Founder, and Publisher Steven Bonica. “No one should ever have to fear being silenced or punished for peacefully expressing their views on a free speech platform. Many Romanians have had to flee from our original home country before the fall of communism because of persecution and threats to free speech and religious freedom, so we value the American commitment to protecting these God-given freedoms. Meta’s decision to restore our account shows that it values these freedoms as well. We look forward to reconnecting with our thousands of Facebook followers who rely on our news coverage every day.”
Pronunciation guide: Sechler (SECK’-lur)
News release published at Alliance Defending Freedom
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Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.
